Surprised this hasn't come up here..... so I'll bring it up.
Article by James Travers
Travers: Tories feeling the sting of ' hyprocisy' label
March 11, 2010
James Travers
Conservatives in power quickly grasped that nothing sticks like a label. Tax-and-spend Liberals were branded as soft on crime, the NDP leader became Taliban Jack and diplomat Richard Colvin was a terrorist dupe.
But in politics, as in real life, what goes around, comes around. A ruling party that's been so successful reducing rational debate to emotional slurs now has a keen interest in keeping voters from jumping to conclusions.
Along with presiding judge Doug Maund, most Canadians recognize the legal break that let former Reform poster-boy Rahim Jaffer walk out of a provincial court this week with barely a scratch and no criminal record. In their guts those same law-abiding, taxpaying citizens just absolutely know they wouldn't be nearly so lucky in plea bargaining their way off the twin hooks of impaired driving and possession of cocaine.
Of course there's no more evidence that Jaffer got a sweetheart deal than there is that budget-balancing Liberals care more about criminals than victims, that Jack Layton's patriotism is suspect or that Colvin is anything other than a conscientious, unusually courageous civil servant. After all, every year thousands of charges are dropped in courtrooms across the province and country for sound legal reasons.
Still, it's more than awkward for "do-the-crime, do the time" Conservatives that Jaffer, once the front-man for the Conservative caucus and still the husband of testy junior cabinet minister Helena Guergis, is so widely seen as escaping the full weight of the law. Self-evident in their equivocal support for a former colleague and member of the Conservative family is the certain knowledge that they, too, are now victims of public suspicion, clinging perceptions and snap judgments.
In this case, those judgments carry the extra lash of irony. Way back in 2006, Conservatives used Liberal "entitlement" as a stick to beat power out of the then natural governing party. Since then, Stephen Harper has spared no effort or expense (two GST cuts set Canada's course toward deficits long before the financial collapse) in connecting his party with what is paternally known in the national capital as "ordinary Canadians."
About the last thing Conservatives now need is to be seen as the newest members of a privileged Ottawa elite preaching high standards for the rest of us while imposing on themselves more, well, flexible rules. That's known as hypocrisy, rarely a political asset and fast becoming a liability.
Run a moist finger down recent events and find Finance Minister Jim Flaherty flying off in a federal corporate jet just hours after promising to tighten the national belt. Or, to cite just one of many other examples, this government, the one that came to power solemnly promising accountability, is now using every rhetorical and procedural dodge to keep secret what ministers and generals knew about Afghan prisoner abuse.
More worrying than the examples is the trend. Schoolyard insults and finger-pointing are silencing fact-based debate while burying principle and policy under a steaming heap of hyperbole. One result is a deepening of the political polarization that Liberals memorably turned to their advantage by accusing Conservatives, one election campaign after another, of harbouring a secret agenda. Another is that it further distances Canadians from politicians who too often seem more interested in scoring points in a meaningless game than in building a consensus on what's best for the country.
It's possible, if far from likely, that the Jaffer embarrassment will be instructive for Conservatives. A party that prospers by sticking labels on its opponents now must peel from itself one that screams a warning about double standards.
Article by James Travers
Travers: Tories feeling the sting of ' hyprocisy' label
March 11, 2010
James Travers
Conservatives in power quickly grasped that nothing sticks like a label. Tax-and-spend Liberals were branded as soft on crime, the NDP leader became Taliban Jack and diplomat Richard Colvin was a terrorist dupe.
But in politics, as in real life, what goes around, comes around. A ruling party that's been so successful reducing rational debate to emotional slurs now has a keen interest in keeping voters from jumping to conclusions.
Along with presiding judge Doug Maund, most Canadians recognize the legal break that let former Reform poster-boy Rahim Jaffer walk out of a provincial court this week with barely a scratch and no criminal record. In their guts those same law-abiding, taxpaying citizens just absolutely know they wouldn't be nearly so lucky in plea bargaining their way off the twin hooks of impaired driving and possession of cocaine.
Of course there's no more evidence that Jaffer got a sweetheart deal than there is that budget-balancing Liberals care more about criminals than victims, that Jack Layton's patriotism is suspect or that Colvin is anything other than a conscientious, unusually courageous civil servant. After all, every year thousands of charges are dropped in courtrooms across the province and country for sound legal reasons.
Still, it's more than awkward for "do-the-crime, do the time" Conservatives that Jaffer, once the front-man for the Conservative caucus and still the husband of testy junior cabinet minister Helena Guergis, is so widely seen as escaping the full weight of the law. Self-evident in their equivocal support for a former colleague and member of the Conservative family is the certain knowledge that they, too, are now victims of public suspicion, clinging perceptions and snap judgments.
In this case, those judgments carry the extra lash of irony. Way back in 2006, Conservatives used Liberal "entitlement" as a stick to beat power out of the then natural governing party. Since then, Stephen Harper has spared no effort or expense (two GST cuts set Canada's course toward deficits long before the financial collapse) in connecting his party with what is paternally known in the national capital as "ordinary Canadians."
About the last thing Conservatives now need is to be seen as the newest members of a privileged Ottawa elite preaching high standards for the rest of us while imposing on themselves more, well, flexible rules. That's known as hypocrisy, rarely a political asset and fast becoming a liability.
Run a moist finger down recent events and find Finance Minister Jim Flaherty flying off in a federal corporate jet just hours after promising to tighten the national belt. Or, to cite just one of many other examples, this government, the one that came to power solemnly promising accountability, is now using every rhetorical and procedural dodge to keep secret what ministers and generals knew about Afghan prisoner abuse.
More worrying than the examples is the trend. Schoolyard insults and finger-pointing are silencing fact-based debate while burying principle and policy under a steaming heap of hyperbole. One result is a deepening of the political polarization that Liberals memorably turned to their advantage by accusing Conservatives, one election campaign after another, of harbouring a secret agenda. Another is that it further distances Canadians from politicians who too often seem more interested in scoring points in a meaningless game than in building a consensus on what's best for the country.
It's possible, if far from likely, that the Jaffer embarrassment will be instructive for Conservatives. A party that prospers by sticking labels on its opponents now must peel from itself one that screams a warning about double standards.
